New ground rules

I probably should've done this in the very beginning, but I didn't foresee any problems that I might have with this blog.  Due to an overly sensitive reader that I ran into earlier, I think that some ground rules are in order.

Rule #1:  If you don't like what I have to say, be it about a doll, a concept, or some aspect of myself (my religion, my political beliefs, etc), you are more than welcome to bugger off and GO ELSEWHERE.  Nethilia said this about her blog and I will say it about mine:  this is my blog and I'll say what I please.  I do try to tread lightly around delicate topics (or just avoid them altogether), but when push comes to shove my feelings are going to come first here.  

Rule #2:  If you've taken issue with one part of a post, do me a favor and read the rest of the post before getting your panties in a wad and saying something stupid.  If it's news I try to go from bad to good in an attempt to keep things positive (unless the news is all bad or all good, which it rarely is).  If it's a doll review I take good things and bad things as they come and then sum it all up at the end.

Rule #3:  If you choose to ignore the first two rules and get your little feelings hurt, you have the option to message me below.  I don't mind if our opinions differ, and I don't mind if you say a few naughty words (hey, I cuss in real life).  However, keep in mind that since this is my blog, I have the privilege of reviewing your comment before posting it.  If the comment is confrontational, rude, overly vulgar, dumb/spammy/off-topic, or if it attacks me or any other blogger, I will have it removed.  I started this blog for fun (both for you and for me), and I absolutely will not tolerate any baloney.

Break these rules, and Jade is going to come to your place and do THIS!

Yours Truly,

RagingMoon1987

Tonner's newest arrival...and I'm lovin' it!

Finally, Sindy's available stateside!!!  Thank you, Robert Tonner!  Well okay, Sindy was available here in the U.S. once before, but it was several years before I was born.  Since I'm not British and not a product of the 1970's, I've never seen a Sindy doll with my own eyes.  I do own one dress, but it is on one of my decrepit old Barbie dolls at the moment.

Oh wait!  Who is Sindy, you ask?  Here's what she looks like.

Sindy was released in 1963 by some crowd called Pedigree, whom I assume had nothing to do with dog food.  She was marketed as an alternative to Barbie, and bore a strong resemblance to Ideal Tammy.  Sindy's image started out simple enough as a "girl-next-door" type (in other words, average), but soon ditched the Plain Jane appeal when the Mod Revolution struck.  She remained a staple of the British doll world until about 1995, when her appeal started to fade.  Giving the doll a makeover only earned her and her handling company (Hasbro by that time) a lawsuit from Mattel, who attested that the new Sindy looked too much like Barbie.  Did she?  You tell me!

I can see the differences between Barbie and this 1990 Hasbro Sindy (not my doll), but I can see enough similarities that Mattel was justified.  But then again, Mattel's always getting their panties in a wad over something.  Just ask the Bratz.

Anywho, Woolworths eventually bought the rights to sell Sindy.  When Woolworths tanked in 2008 that was the end of her, though there was a revival for her fiftieth anniversary.  I'd heard nothing about Sindy since, though I'll admit that I didn't look too hard.  That's why this announcement from Tonner comes as a complete (and welcome) surprise for me.  

Unfortunately the Tonner website has very little up right now regarding Sindy's release.  Luckily for all of us, Rhonda F has that covered.  It looks like she may be as excited about this new release as I am.  According to her blog post, Tonner's spin on Sindy will be a modernized one.  Sindy will have the same general appearance as the old Pedigree dolls, but her clothing will be modernized.  That is a very teensy disappointment for me since I love vintage style, but hey!  SINDY'S COMING BACK!!!  She could wear a burlap sack and shoeboxes on her feet and I wouldn't complain much.  I am curious about one thing, though;  will Tonner Sindy be able to wear Pedigree Sindy's clothes???  I hope so, but I can hear my wallet going "PLEASE, ANYTHING BUT THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!"  LOL, either way it'll be interesting to see.

Oh yes, I haven't forgotten that I still owe you a review on my Cami doll.  I've been promising that for the whole year and STILL haven't gotten it done yet.  With the beginning of fall has come a mass redressing of dolls and Cami was one of them, so that allowed me to get some pictures for the body review done.  Stay tuned...

Happy First Day of Fall,

RagingMoon1987

Another post on American Girl dolls

This post will merely be me drawing your attention to someone else's blog (again).  Don't worry, it's worth it!  Here recently I've been wondering what my historical dolls would look like in modern/semi-modern clothes.  I'm particularly curious about how Felicity would look in a pair of bell bottoms.

It seems I'm not alone; one of my fellow bloggers decided to dig out her historical girls (and a couple of Girls of the Year), and put them in Julie Albright's clothes.  Julie, for those of you who don't know, is the little hippie girl from San Francisco who had a very cute Asian friend once upon a time.  Anyway, Marjorie runs the blog My Dolly Addiction on Wordpress, the main focus of which is eighteen-inch play dolls like American Girl and Maplelea.  Today's focus was on Julie and her clothes; Marjorie had enough outfits to dress a decent chunk of her crew, and one of those dolls was Felicity.  Marjorie's Lissie wasn't wearing bell bottoms, but she still looked like a million bucks.  That post can be found here.

Now I DEFINITELY want a pair of bell bottoms for my Felicity!  And a hanbok for Denise too!  LOL, I can hear my pocketbook groaning.

Yours truly,
RagingMoon1987

A hairy situation.

The last American Girl-themed post I did was about Molly, so today we're going to talk (very briefly) about Kirsten.  No, silver eye hasn't reared it's ugly head with her too.  Kirsten's problem is her hair, or rather, the rubber bands in her hair.  They're starting to break up.

I hate it when rubber bands do that.  Add to this the fact that I've NEVER taken Kirsten's hair down.  In the fifteen years that I've owned her I've done nothing to the hair except change the ribbons every now and then.  Plus I've never been good at styling doll hair; Molly's simple pigtail braids are about as fancy as I can manage.  But this has to be done, lest the entire braid fall out when I undo that ribbon again.  This isn't going to be an in-depth tutorial; Rhonda F and Beanbunny have those (thank God).  But in case I louse this up terribly, here's a picture of Kirsten in her original state.

Notice that one of her braids is already starting to slip.  Can't have that!

**************************************

I AM NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!  LOL, just kidding.  It wasn't that bad.  I'm thankful to Rhonda F and Beanbunny for those tutorials, though!  Here's what Kirsten looks like now.  She doesn't look all that different.

I need to play with that right braid a little so the end will hide better, but for my first go at it the loops came out pretty good.

Sometime in the near future I'll have to give them all a good hair wash (Felicity particularly needs it).  Such a task will involve taking Kirsten's hair completely down, but now that I know how to redo the loops, I'm not sweating it.

Very truly yours,

RagingMoon1987

The clove of seasons

When James Hurst wrote about the clove of seasons, I'm almost certain that he was referring to September.  In our neck of the woods September usually begins hot and ends cool.  It's the beginning of Birthday Season in our family, and it's also the time when we start thinking about Halloween.  I'm slowly pulling together a collection of costumes for my girls, but that's for another post.  Today I decided to take advantage of the shifting weather and brought my Madame Alexander girls out for a frolic.

Too bad they lack better jointing!  LOL, at least they look cute in their summer clothes.

Happy Dog Days,
RagingMoon1987

Eye spy...

When my family moved to our new house in 2011, I put my historical American Girls up on a shelf and left them there.  Fast-forward three years, and I'm just now getting to where I'm interested in them again.  It helped that I finally found my box of spare AG clothes (also missing since 2011).  Upon the rediscovery of these clothes I pulled the girls down off that shelf and started redressing them.  Now would be a good time to mention that I have four historical girls (Felicity, Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly), and all of them have more than one outfit.  For the most part redressing went well; Felicity's nightgown and meet dress needed a washing, but all was well otherwise.  Joints were tight, vinyl needed only a light dusting, hair was shiny.  All was well...until I looked at Molly.  This is what I found:

In addition to having a slightly grubby face, Molly has a nasty case of silver eye.  This didn't surprise me too terribly because Molly is an older doll (age is one factor in silver eye development), and she is also one of the dolls that is predisposed to the condition (Kaya, Addy, Kirsten, Kit, and two of the non-historicals can also get it).  Fortunately silver eye isn't contagious, unlike the eye mold that can be found on vintage Crissy dolls.  Unfortunately, the only way that I can get this fixed is if I send Molly in to AG's hospital to have that eye replaced.  This is problematic because my particular Molly is...well, she's not Mattel!  She is either PC or transitional, I'm not sure which.  Her eyelashes are soft to the touch, which is a big deal for some collectors because Mattel dolls' lashes are stiff plastic.  If I were to send Molly to the hospital her eye could be replaced, no fuss, no muss, but the new eye would have the stiff Mattel lashes.  This wouldn't bother me except that I'm not sure how Molly would look with PC lashes on one eye and Mattel lashes on the other.  If I could guarantee that the appearance wouldn't be that different, I'd have her mended in a heartbeat.  But since I CAN'T be sure, I'm just going to hold on to her and see what happens with the other eye.

Kirsten is also on the list of dolls that can develop silver eye, so I'm going to watch her very closely.  Stay tuned.

Yours truly,
RagingMoon1987